Fate, No Less
by fluffybluff
Summary: Redhead's musing about his love life and a certain Tanuki as he flipped through a gravure magazine found in the convenient store. Prequel to "The Big, Bad, Himura Kenshin Raid"


Disclaimer: RK isn't mine.

AN: I was super bored and I decided to make a super small prequel for my other fic, "The Big Bad Himura Kenshin Raid". Just something I'm doing for fun. Yes, yes, I know it's not funny, I myself dont know why I put this under "Humour" category. I guess I have always been a bit off in writing summaries and categorising my stories. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this, and don't forget to review!

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**Fate, No Less**

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There are people who said that meetings are not coincidence. They are fate.

Kenshin didn't know; was it a cursed fate or a gift from heaven?

It was as if that… _thing_… was calling him. He felt it. He felt the force pulling him and whispering to him, as if it was an angel trying to give him a prophecy.

Kenshin chuckled at his overly dramatised brain. Convenient store wasn't a place where people got their prophecies. It was just one of those odd days.

He had just finished his practice and was about to go home when his stomach suddenly grumbled. He didn't feel like cooking tonight, so he decided to stop by at the convenient store he rarely went to. He took two packs of onigiri and a bread, and on the way to the cashier, his eyes fell on the magazine counter.

_Something to read would be nice…_ He thought. There were some art magazines, mainly pop art and house-interior magazine, so he moved and opted to browse through the interior magazine. Sometimes, these magazines included sculpture and carving designs in some of the articles, and as a fine art student, especially majoring in sculpting, he found himself more interested in that compared to the bright colours and sassy images in the pop art magazine.

A few flips later, he got a little bored. The magazine didn't include anything that could inspire him. He put down the magazine and grabbed the sports magazine beside it. It was still in its plastic, so he browsed through the small shelf, trying to find the sample. He took out one which seemed to be without the plastic wrapping anymore, but instead of the sports magazine he was hoping for, he took out something else.

He chuckled as he saw a gravure magazine in his hands. This was what Sano would buy everytime they went to the bookstore. Well, this, or an even more vulgar one. He, himself, didn't have any experience owning such magazines, or the more vulgar ones.

It wasn't that he wasn't interested in pretty women wearing almost nothing, it was just that he didn't find them too appealing for him. When they were younger, during the puberty, he had accepted without complaints some of the magazines that Sano forced him to see. When Sano forced to lend him some of his perverted magazines and books like that, he would find himself lazily flipping through the magazine in the middle of the night, before falling asleep ten minutes later, as if he was reading a thick, boring literature. Films were probably a better medium to him, even though the duration of him watching porn was like duration of a newly born baby being awake.

Moreover, he didn't need magazines. He always had enough real women around him. He was attractive and hot for someone who looked so tame, he was charming, friendly, kind, smart, and dependable; women clung on him like monkeys towards their bananas. It wasn't that he played around with those girls; it was just that most of his relationships always lasted for so long, and of course when he had a girlfriend, he didn't need to resort to other means of sexual satisfaction. For him, his girlfriend was always more than enough.

At times when he didn't have any girlfriend, he would be very busy. Actually, his hectic schedule was the one thing that triggered failures in his past relationships. He had his university classes, kendo classes, his part time job, humouring his uncle who raised him after his parents passed away, and there was almost no time for him to even think about these things. He wanted to do a lot of things that sometimes, some things were just left neglected.

"Huh…" Kenshin mumbled. He just realized that he was probably the most sexually inactive man in the world. He had been celibate for a year; he broke up with his last girlfriend no less than a year and a half ago, and since then he had to regularly refuse Sano's offer to _'live your life happily'_ with him. It wasn't that he thought that having a one night stand was wrong. Unlike Sano's accusation, he was actually opened to a casual, consensual sex. He had done it once, twice, since his last break up, without Sano knowing about it.

More than half a year after the break up, he actually decided to stay celibate. The reason was simple enough; a girl caught his eyes. It wasn't that he really wanted to stay celibate. It was just that suddenly, no other girls attracted him anymore, and he didn't want to be with a girl he wasn't attracted to just for the sake of some physical satisfaction. Yes, as Sano said, he was a pretty lazy and laid back person.

He sighed as he looked at the cover of the magazine. "Shimada Ruka… Special Edition…" He read the title. He looked at the girl in the cover, and admitted that she might be quite cute. Her hair was light brown, tied into twin tails, and the end of the hair was curled into a cute, princess curl. Her eyes were blue, induced by contacts, and her lips were so pink, especially when she posed as if she was blowing a kiss towards the readers. She was wearing a bright pink bikini with some colourful diamonds on it, and for some reason, she was also wearing cowboy hat and cowboy boots.

"Not bad…" He mumbled to himself again. Not bad indeed, although compared to the grinning raven haired beauty he met everyday at the doujo, Shimada Ruka would pale in comparison. Well, at least that's what Kenshin thought. His lips unconsciously curved a smile as he remembered her, in her kendo uniform, waving her bokken around. Her sapphire eyes always shone expressively, giving away everything she was thinking of. Her full, rosy lips always smiled at him happily, and her velvet black hair that Kenshin loved so much was always tied in a cute high ponytail.

_Kaoru…_ For some reason that name never went passed his throat. While she always called him casually with his first name, Kenshin seemed to have difficulties saying her name in the more familiar and intimate way. It was always, Kaoru-san, and sometimes when they were joking around, Kaoru-chan.

Kenshin inhaled and started flipping the gravure magazine in his hands, trying to get Kaoru out of his head. Shimada Ruka on the beach… Shimada Ruka taking a bath, Shimada Ruka with a pink car… Kenshin yawned as he flipped the pages half heartedly, as if someone forced him to do so. Probably a habit he developed, being friends with Sano for a long time.

He suddenly stopped flipping. He was frozen for at least ten seconds, before pulling the magazine closer to his face. He felt that his face was heating up, and his palms began to sweat. He couldn't even flip the page, as his fingers started to plant their roots in that page. The 'Shimada Ruka in the Bedroom' page, and "Shimada Ruka: Samurai Fever" page.

No one noticed, not even himself, that amber glints were swimming around his burning amethyst eyes. Unconsciously, he blurted out the only name he thought he could never say out loud.

"Kaoru…" It came out of his mouth so naturally and so deliciously. Suddenly, he was reminded what he had been missing out for over a year.

Remember, Himura Kenshin never really liked gravure magazines, erotic magazines, or porn magazines. He would rather watch some movies, or experienced the real thing directly. He never found himself in need of such magazines.

Although today, he was holding that kind of magazine in his hands. He cautiously looked at his left and right, and then shrugged.

"Think of it as… fate… Himura…" He said to himself, before taking three of the same magazine and walked towards the cashier.


End file.
